“No, my friend, you credit me far too much. Don’t get me wrong. I do believe there are people who’ve been gifted with extraordinary powers.” His sister Leah’s face danced through his mind, but Chase pushed those memories away. “I just don’t happen to be one of them. I’m nothing more than a warrior, Halldor. A warrior plain and simple.” It was all he was ever meant to be, and apparently he’d been put in the place he belonged in order to be exactly that.
CHRISTIANA SAT CROSS-LEGGEDon the stones in front of a flickering candle, her head cradled in her hands, despair gnawing at her innards.
What would she do? If Torquil refused her passage to visit Orabilis again, what could she do?
Nothing.
She would be his prisoner here forever, her fate at the mercy of Skuld’s every whim. Trapped here without either the knowledge or the ability to steer her own destiny. Watching helplessly as the man whose destiny she had interfered with suffered whatever fate the future might bring. That fear, more than anything else, pained her.
For without access to the herbs Orabilis provided, she hadn’t the ability to search Skuld’s world for the information she needed to find. She’d spent the last several hours attempting unsuccessfully to make her way into the Visions. Not only could she not target what she wanted to find, it seemed as though she was no longer able to step foot in Skuld’s world of future possibilities at all.
She couldn’t even focus on the pathway to reach her desired destination. Each time she closed her eyes it was Chase Noble that filled her mind. Chase’s strong shoulders, straining at the cloth of his tunic as he practiced in the lists, his easy smile as she bandaged his foot, the sound of his voice as he spoke her name, the way her skin heated each time they touched. She could only imagine what it might feel like to have him hold her close; to have his lips hovering over hers as they shared a kiss.
A shiver ran the length of her spine and she forced the image of him away. It was completely improper for her to harbor such fantasies about him. It was a rescuer, not a lover, that she had seenin her future, and that was what the Elf had sent to her.
She couldn’t fault Chase for her inability to reach the Visions. There must be some other reason. Something she was overlooking.
Had she spent so long in Skuld’s world the last time that she’d worn out her welcome? Or was it as simple as the disquiet she carried in her soul after her meeting with Torquil?
Her half brother had long worried her. Better than most, she saw that the power he took into himself changed him. Corrupted him. Blackened his soul. But today, for the first time ever, she’d known true fear in his presence. When he’d turned to order her from the room, the eyes that had looked back at her from his face, red and glowing hot, had not belonged to him. It had taken all the courage she could muster to speak to him again before fleeing.
Rising from the floor, Christiana picked up her candle to carry it with her down the winding stairs. Cold licked at her ankles as she reached the bottom step, where only the soft glow of embers remained in her fireplace to greet her. She bent down to stir them before adding wood to encourage the fire back to life.
Her stomach growled as she pulled her bedding close to the fire, reminding her she’d missed her meals in her effort to travel on the wings of the Visions.
“And all for naught,” she sighed. She was no closer to knowing what was to come than she had been at first light, when she’d rolled these blankets up to store them for the day.
Sitting down, she pulled off her shoes and dropped them to the raised hearth next to her. The fire crackled and spit, releasing a spark that floated away on a current of heated air. Her eyes followed it as it danced upward like a living thing seeking its freedom, until it reached the level of the mantel. There it touched upon her bag of runes, just as its heat faded and it disappeared into nothing.
Her runes!
Had the gods called her name aloud, they couldn’t have made themselves heard any more clearly.
“Thank you,” she whispered, not sure which of the gods might have smiled upon her this night and unwilling to annoy any of them by choosing the wrong one to honor.
The bag was small and dark, made from the softest of leathers. Her father had claimed that it had been passed down through generations of their family, and she had no reason to doubt his word.
She sat on the floor again, loosened the ties, and pulled forth a square of embroidered linen before allowing the contents to spill out into her hand. Twenty-four bits of carved wood, darkened and worn smooth by untold years of use.
Her runes.
With the linen square flattened out in front ofher, she closed her eyes and dropped the runes from her hand.
With her Visions of the future withheld, she asked for guidance from the Ancient Ones. Some clue as to what was to come. Some clue as to what she needed to do to save herself and the man she’d forced the Elf to send to her. One false step on her part and Torquil could well bring the world as they knew it to an end. The world and Chase Noble.
Eyes still shut, she concentrated on the two of them—her and Chase, together, his arms entwined around her. With the vision in her mind, she reached down and chose two of the runes at random, closing her fingers around them, savoring the feel of the old wood against her palm.
One for her, one for the man whose arrival she’d awaited so long. One for Christiana, one for Chase.
Within her palm, the little coins of wood nested together, face-to-face. With a shaking finger, she pushed them flat to see what message she had been given.
Tiwaz,the warrior, andBerkana,the birch tree. The first advised courage and strength of conviction, while the second portended new beginnings and birth. Or rebirth.
Only as she stared at the old carvings did her mistake occur to her. She should have chosen them one at a time. One clearly for her, one clearly for him.
Too late for that now. The Ancient Ones had already spoken.
She fisted her fingers around the runes and lay back on her blankets. Snuggling down into the heavy woolens, she clutched them to her heart.
